


Catharsis

by lirulin



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Gen, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect Kink Meme, Medical Trauma, Unrequited Ship, low key shipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 12:35:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20174353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirulin/pseuds/lirulin
Summary: Mordin is injured on a mission and Shepard is the only one on hand to patch him up. After the fact he feels guilty and wants to return the favor.





	Catharsis

**Author's Note:**

> Archiving a fill for the ME Kink Meme (https://masskink.livejournal.com/769.html?thread=2063105#t2063105), originally posted 9/10/2010. Fic is posted exactly as it was with extremely minimal editing.

"Get down!" She distinctly remembered shouting that, she could feel it tear across her throat, taste the punctuation and how it tore its way out, but she couldn't hear a word of it. The air was thick, moist and laced with heavy fog. She knocked the body beside her down and stood, rounded on the boulder and watched the world part in front of her.

The sky and the distance were all one space, pressing downward with infinite weight. She fired rounds, felt the heat, and concussive force of them shake her ribs through her armor. The spray they sent up as they chopped through flesh, through air, was tinged with iron and copper, silicon and magnesium. Together, they looked, they _tasted_ black.

The ground was crushed, all the life had been trod out of it by boots, mechs, treads, and biotics. Mud and rank slough, a carpet of filth that rose up to meet the dead as they crashed down, fell between the old rocks and the ground out foliage. Brutality was too much a word, inadequate in its absolution, not as penetrating as it needed to be here. Someone was shouting in her ear, a human voice amid the fevered thunder in her ears, beneath the rolling sky.

_"Shepard! Shepard! We have to go!"_

It could have been in her head, rattled around from too much battle, shocked and shaken to the base of her skull with the impact of shells. Her clip ejected as the heat-sink hit capacity. The weapon was smoldering in her grip, the smell of burnt blood was on her hands as she jammed the rounds into the base. Her hand moved for the locking bar, pulled it back to engaged the rounds, and the world went loud and silent all at once.

Her arm jarred, shuddered and flopped against the air as if it was some solid thing. It shook her, resounded like a plucked harpstring and jammed her bones together, splintered like glass beneath her skin, and pounded softer things that couldn't take it, couldn't feel it. She twisted in a sickening pirouette, took the ground knee and hip and chest at once. There was blood in her eye, a puddle of it seeped through her face, was in her mouth with the heavy flavor of mud. It was blue and black, but too metallic to be anything else.

She pushed, forced her bones to bring her up, to bring her around as the hard ache of puncture, of shrapnel dug into her shoulder, into the space between her armor. Her vision jarred, sent the horizon every which way, but her legs, her body remembered which was up. Bullets cut the air and the spark of hard flame danced across her skin.

Mordin was up, his hand still sparking and his gun shouting in a repeating staccato. he grabbed her by the forearm, hauled her up as he fired blind, scattered the Krogan into the rocks beside the corpses of their clanmates. He was stronger than he looked, tougher, but he wasn't a soldier any more. She could feel the tremor in his arm like the shaking of the earth.

The voice in her ear called about dropships, about flanking mechs and desperate odds. 

This was a graveyard.

Her feet hit ground and it felt like salvation. The clip hummed to life as she jammed it in, loaded and ready to level death across the battle field. Mordin's hand released and he twisted back, moved toward cover but never made it. The bullet ripped into his side with enough force to buckle him over, ripple him into a ring like water. Fuchsia joined the mat of black and blue in her eye and she actually flinched.

Suddenly the world wasn't moving slowly, as if the flutter of muscles forced it back to speed. The explosives Kasumi had planted rocked the cliff-side. Smoke shot up in terrible towers as the Vorcha scattered away, the Krogan remained alongside the mechs. She could feel the fire on her back, distant but intense. Fusion charges, dangerous and powerful. Mordin collapsed back at her, his breath stumbling and jerking as his thin body draped over her shoulder like some sick tapestry.

Her gun was loaded and ready to deal death. She threw it to the ground, though, freed that hand and used it to activate her tactical cloak. The world melted into an echo of itself as she hauled up the Salarian and turned. Bullets chopped, bit at the ground behind her. She was soaking where they splashed up blood, sticky and hot where they hadn't. Her shields were down, and her legs burned.

They were being flanked. Mechs, and lots of them. She held Mordin tighter, secured him around the waist and did the only sensible thing. She jumped off the cliff and down into the ocean far below. They hit the water and she tasted Virmire on it. She never let go.

He was half conscious when she drug him on shore, set him out on rocks in a shielded alcove and sent a desperate signal to the Normandy. He was bleeding with a force that twisted up her own veins. She couldn't remember what color his shirt had been, and his tremors were full blown convulsions.

Medigel was not going to fucking cut it.

She shucked her gloves, threw the armor and the tech down onto the ground without hesitation. Needed dexterity for this, needed clean, and this was the best she could do. She was at his side as his eyes closed, his hands idly grasping for something against the rock, scraping like he was trying to hold on to the life around him. She pulled a thermal clip from her armor, hissing and ready to load. Incendiary rounds.

It was an old trick, one she'd picked up long before her time as a Spectre, one she hoped she'd never have to use.

She pulled a round from the casing and struck it against the rock. It hummed and she saw the crack forming in the chemical case. Just like cracking an egg. She tossed the clip aside and her free hand opened the wound, pulled it apart to see. Mordin was so far gone he barely flinched. The vein was easy to locate and she swallowed as she struck the round on the rock again and broke the case.

She pressed the glass, the chemicals, up against the open vein and Mordin lurched forward, his eyes wide and his mouth wider as the reaction burned the worst of the damage closed. She threw the spent round over her shoulder--her fingers were blistering already--and caught him before his body sagged back against the rock.

They were low level, basic incendiaries, and she was thankful for it. If she'd had the thermide rounds on her, Mordin would have bled out on this godforsaken beach. As it was, she'd bought him minutes over the seconds he'd had before. 

* * *

Light was, perhaps, the last thing he expected to see. Then again, seeing was something he had not expected to do much more of, given his death. When he opened his eyes to find Doctor Chakwas leaning over him, a relieved smile across her face, he was perplexed on multiple levels.

"Not dead?" He attempted. The final result of his attempt to speak was...less than fruitful.

"Oh thank god." Kasumi exhaled off to the side of him and he heard the slight impact of feet on the metallic floor. Metallic floor, so he was on the Normandy again.

"I believe she prefers _Commander_, or _Shepard_, Ms. Goto," Chakwas answered with a light smile and looked down at Mordin. "Can you hear me, Doctor Solus?" She prompted and he blinked heavily before inching his head forward. All of his muscles burned, but real sensation lingered beneath a heavy chemical veil. He was sedated, very sedated, and quite thankful for it.

At least, if he recalled his injuries with reasonable accuracy.

"Good," Chakwas stated and moved back slightly. "Get some rest, you lost quite a bit of blood."

"Commander?" Mordin managed passably and Chakwas blinked down at him, perhaps surprised by his ability to form a cohesive word. Without answering, she set her hand against the side of his face and turned it. The pillow rustled beneath his skull as she pointed his face toward the AI core.

At the back of the room was an oxygen chamber, not unlike those he utilized for the storage of live specimen. The major defining difference, however, was that this one contained Commander Shepard, almost completely in the nude. He was not positive, having never seen her in such a state before, but he doubted that the strange, dark, mottled coloration across her body was a standard feature. The tube in her mouth and the jerk of her chest at mechanical intervals was, decidedly, new.

"She'll be fine," Chakwas assured him and, despite his half-voiced protests, moved his head back into alignment with his shoulders. "Go to sleep, Doctor Solus. When you wake up, you should have more blood than morphine in your veins."

* * *

"I think I've been shot enough times to know how hard I can push myself, Doc."

"It's like your life is an exercise in tempting my hand, Commander. I _will_ pull medical rank."

"At least I'm disobeying your orders in Med-bay, Doc."

The conversation was quiet, hushed and fluid above him. The words hovered and sank as he woke up. His eyes parted and, a heartbeat later, the world sluggishly returned to solidity. It took several moments for either woman to notice his consciousness. The Doctor was clearly just woken, her hair rumpled and her body wrapped in a long, fluffy robe. The Commander, still several interesting shades of yellow and green, was in her standard casual wear and seated next to him.

"Do I have to enlist Officer Vakarian to escort you to your chambers? I believe he is quite skilled in the moving of uncooperative individuals."

"If you can coax him away from that console with anything less than the promise of full on combat, Doc, I'll give you a medal," Shepard promised dryly and her eyes flicked down toward him. It was a cursory glance, investigatory, but when she made eye contact, she stopped.

A strange expression came over the woman's face. Unusual, uncommon, not curious in origin or meaning; rare. He had seen it before, or multiple variations of it, similar and dissimilar in equal parts. It's definition still eluded him.

"Doctor Solus," Chakwas voice interrupted and, though his neck was not at liberty to shift, his eyes tracked across until they locked on her face. He blinked. "How are you feeling?"

"Not feeling; haven't moved, no aggravation of tissue," Mordin answered at about half his usual speed. Chakwas laughed and a bright smile pulled at the older woman's face. It was of the same variety the Commander was currently displaying.

He attempted to move his arms, a quick and simple engagement of musculature. They were sore, painful, but tolerable. They reacted sluggishly, but not so much as to indicate any sedatives other than the lingering effects of deep, uninterrupted slumber. He lifted his head, painful, but not deadly. Before he could engage his abdominals and attempt to sit, a hand came down across his chest. 

"Hold up, Mordin," Shepard reprimanded bemusedly. "Take it easy," she added and her hand shifted, slid between his back and the bed, and helped to push him up. He was thankful for it, even the mild exertion under her aid was incredibly painful. The involuntary noise he made was most undignified; Shepard and Chakwas had no comment.

"Thank you, Commander," Mordin offered somberly and Shepard's hand lingered on his shoulder. She was helping to maintain his balance, perhaps. It was unnecessary, but conscientious.

"Any time, Mordin," Shepard promised with a shrug.

"So, Doctor Solus?" Chakwas prompted again.

"In a great amount of residual pain," Mordin informed her with a careful, gradual nod. "Muscle overexertion, extensive concussive shock. Nothing overwhelmingly serious. Abdominal wound severely improved, pain still significant factor, however. "

"Do you require a stronger pain killer?" Chakwas asked and Shepard snorted.

"Doc, what do we keep it around for if not this?" Shepard stared and the wry expression she shot at the woman drew a bemused sigh out of her.

"Commander, I don't know his tolerance, I can't just pump morphine into him until it hits his eyeballs and send him on his way," she defended idly and he looked between the two.

"And why the hell not? That sounds like a pretty good way to recover from getting a fucking hole through my torso," Shepard continued and Chakwas rolled her eyes.

"Ultimately, it's his decision," Chakwas ended the conversation with a stern look and turned to him again.

"Additional medication would increase comfort levels dramatically; not required, but requested," Mordin supplied and Chakwas nodded even as Shepard muttered a none-too-quiet _'I fucking told you so'._The Doctor turned and crossed the room , left him and the Commander at his side. Shepard watched Chakwas and Mordin looked over her with a clinical eye. The majority of her skin was covered, what he could see was alternating shades of blue and green, separated by inconsistent spans of her standard coloration.

"Mordin." At first her voice did not garner his attention. "Hey," she offered and her hand shifted on his shoulder, squeezed. He blinked rapidly and looked up to her face. "Don't look so serious, we made it out."

He blinked and attempted to formulate an answer. She interrupted him, as was often her wont.

"Any escape with all members in tact is a good escape, and I won't hear any arguments to the contrary," Shepard concluded with a look that told him she was quite serious. He nodded and regretted the motion instantly. Apparently his face displayed his discomfort and something in that was amusing. Shepard let out a short laugh. It was singular, amused, relieved, relaxed. It was unique in his experience. He stared and her hand slipped around to rest against his neck, to rub idly.

"Rest up, Mordin," Shepard ordered idly and helped him lie back. As Doctor Chakwas returned with a sterile bag of liquid, Shepard rose. "It's just not goddamned fair, you know that?"

"What, Commander?" Chakwas prompted, her voice pseudo resigned even as she smiled.

"That _I'm_ the one with all the implants and I still don't heal as fast a fucking middle aged Salarian," Shepard ribbed and, even as she said it, patted Mordin gently on the shoulder.

"That's why I'm trying to force you to rest," Chakwas replied back, evenly. "But you don't listen to me."

"Bah," Shepard dismissed with a flick of her wrist. She stood up and offered him a parting nod as she made her way toward the exit. There was a slight catch in her step, but she didn't seem particularly bothered by it. A cool, dreary sensation settled in his veins as Chakwas set up the drip. She bid him a good night and Mordin was asleep again.

* * *

_"I have to get him stabilized before I can deal with the commander, Gardner."_

The video feed danced before him. Chakwas moved around the side of his limp body, stretched out on the table, furiously cutting his uniform away from skin. The spare staff, various humans from other departments, followed her orders with minimal hesitation. Behind him, on the table to his side, Mess Sargent Gardner was furiously struggling to remove Commander Shepard's breastplate.

_"She's spittin' like a New-Mexican rattler!"_

He didn't recognize the comparison. Commander Shepard was clearly suffering a neurological reaction, convulsing on the table as her skin tensed, swelling at a nearly perceptible rate. She was suffering anaphylaxys. Chakwas snapped at Gardner. Mordin looked back as she started to reopen the wound in his abdomen, the splatter of blood was audible as she clipped the cauterized block.

_"One minute, Gardner! There's epinephrine in the medical cabinet! Get a clamp on this!"_

Mordin sat back and watched the screen as it replayed the security footage of Medical. Their return had been...quite hectic. He watched with rapt, silent attention as Chakwas dealt with his extensive cardio-vascular wounds--her speed was remarkable; quite impressive for a human--and kept an eye on Garnder as he struggled to stabilize the Commander.

Mordin watched as his body ceased to hemorrhage and Chakwas tore away from his side at the first possible moment. She was much more effective when it came to stripping the Commander, and the armor came away in large sections. Shepard's convulsions had stopped, but she was bleeding profusely from a pulpy wound in her shoulder. The dark coloration of Human blood made remote examination of the wound impossible. When they forced the oxygen tube down her throat, Mordin found himself viscerally uncomfortable. His stomach turned; he deactivated the recording and pushed away from the console.

The Tech Lab was quiet, silent, insofar as anything on board could be considered silent. Mordin took a deep breath and pressed his hand to his chin. He had thought that viewing the events of their return would set his mind at ease, a hypothesis he'd just soundly disproved. He paced. It did not alleviate the stress coiled in his limbs. It was psychological, then.

"Only solution to reach emotional equilibrium is interaction; simple enough," Mordin announced to the emptiness of his laboratory. "Computer," Mordin addressed and EDI's hologram appeared. "What is current status: Commander Shepard?"

"The Commander is in her quarters, Doctor Solus," EDI responded evenly. If being referred to as computer bothered her, she didn't comment. "She is fully conscious, however."

"Excellent," Mordin announced, more to himself than EDI. "Situation optimal."

Without wasting further energy or time on deliberations, Mordin exited the lab and traveled directly to the elevator. His bravado, for, in fact, it was more this than anything else, faded slightly as he stepped out of the elevator and onto th highest floor. His previous conclusion, that interaction was integral to catharsis, was still correct. He pressed his hand on the entry pad, requesting permission.

The door swung open quickly, as though it hadn't been locked, and Mordin stepped inside before he could reconsider his actions. He had never seen the Commander's quarters. They were well kempt, clean, orderly, and bore distinctively human organizational tendencies. His eyes surveyed the room in a quick flick. 

"Mordin?" Shepard asked and he searched out her voice. It took him only a moment to find her on the couch just past the initial section of the room. Before her, several digital displays sat scattered on the table. In her right hand she had a hot beverage in a standard issue mug. "Something up?"

"Commander," Mordin greeted with a quick incline of his head. "Have problem; require your help to reach conclusion. Difficult process, healing." Shepard set her mug down, leaned back on the couch, and watched him. Her expression was calm, even as he continued informing her of the difficulties of reclaiming physical optimum.

"I was meaning to come down and visit you," Shepard interrupted evenly and Mordin went silent as he waited for her to continue. "I wanted to thank you. You saved my ass when you broke cover." She drummed her fingers on the couch. "Don't do it again, Solus."

"Not eager to be critically wounded," Mordin answered in quiet agreement. There was a short silence as they stared at each other. "Watched the record of return; found it to be most disturbing. Are you healthy? Sufficient?"

"I'm a little banged up," Shepard dismissed his concern and leaned forward, rested her elbows on her knees with a ginger pause that didn't go unseen.

"Have to express sincerest thanks," Mordin continued. "Similar reasoning to your own, more serious implication. Damage was...extensive, mortal. Unfortunate..."

Shepard was staring at him, watching him with that open, assessing expression she used on everything, on everyone she ever tried to figure out. She laced her fingers and her brow pinched slightly as she regarded him.

"Like I said," Shepard returned, "Any time, Mordin."

Mordin watched her and did not speak. He had assumed this would bring him emotional stability, it had not. Despite her words, his stomach was still tensed in an awkward knot. Shepard rose from her seat, her intense demeanor broken with a light sigh and a smile.

"Is that all, Mordin?" She asked, a polite question intended to dismiss him.

"No," Mordin answered and Shepard blinked. The flash of surprise across her face faded as quickly as it had appeared. "Commander, have a request. Free to deny, of course, but would prove most...helpful to personal well-being." Shepard stared and Mordin continued, his words much more gradual. "Would like to...examine extent of remaining damage."

A moment of silence.

"Would define the unknown, reduce the capacity of imagination as an element," Mordin defended quietly. "Aid in ultimate state of catharsis."

"You want to see my _boo-boos_, Mordin?" Shepard asked, her voice quiet and mild, tinged with...something, _geniality?_ Perhaps an emotional cousin. Despite the infantile vernacular, she appeared to have asked the question in all sincerity. Mordin nodded and Shepard took a breath. "Alright, if it will make you feel better."

Shepard moved around the table and stopped in front of Mordin. She extended her arms, and leveled a patient smile at him. Encouraged by her apparent willingness, Mordin looked down a the limbs. Her left was bruised, laced green and black in patterns that resembled her armor, her right was much more dramatic. The shoulder of her right arm was blue, red, and black, a hard color pallet atop swollen flesh, it crept down halfway to her elbow.

Without asking permission, as she had already exhibited willingness to indulge him, he gently took the appendage and moved it to his liking. Her forearm was unremarkable, in good condition. He shifted her arm and the muscles beneath his fingers jumped, flinched and tensed in reaction.

"Pain?" Mordin prompted quickly. Shepard's laugh was drier, sharper.

"Yeah," she answered and nodded. She seemed incredibly dispassionate about her injuries.

"May I see?" Mordin repeated his previous question, in summary, and Shepard blinked. After a pause, she retook her hand and untucked her shirt, pulled it free from the waistband of her pants to better grip it. She crossed her arms, an automatic motion that she aborted halfway through with a sharp hiss. 

"Oh--_Dammit_\--I keep forgetting about that," Shepard seethed and rotated her right arm gingerly.

"Bend forward; thirty degree angle sufficient," Mordin said and she eyed him before complying. He took her shirt in hand and gently pulled it over her head, patiently winding it around her arm so as to move it the least. He folded the garment and set it aside on the table. When he looked back, she was standing, only her undergarments and an extensive bandage wrapped around her torso.

"Extensive damage," Mordin commented as he followed the wide strips of black and blue across her torso with his fingers. She shifted her shoulder, possibly to relieve tension, and the muscles contracted toward the injury. Silently, Mordin pulled up the edge of the bandage and looked at the remnant damage to her shoulder. The bullet wound had scarred, but the flesh was still tender.

"Shredder round," Shepard answered without being prompted. "Chakwas got the pieces out," she added before he could ask.

Mordin gingerly replaced the bandage and moved, uprooted himself from his place and stepped around her to examine her back. He didn't need to feel her back to understand the damage the bullet had done, he could see the mottled red, the rigid lines of contracted muscles beneath her neck. Human muscles were too intricately interconnected, damage to one set pulled half the body out of alignment. He pressed his hand flat on her back and motioned her to the couch.

"Mordin, what--?"

"Pain will persist," Mordin warned. "Allow continuation."

Shepard sighed and did as he bid, humoring him gracefully. She sat on the couch and Mordin pressed his hands against her shoulder--against the triangular cut of her trapezius. His hands were deft, understood where the muscles wound into bone and applied pressure accordingly. Her back released, gentled and he heard her let out a ragged sigh.

"Better?" Mordin prompted. "Pain has ceased?"

"By a long-shot," she answered. The smile on her face defined that idiom as a positive one, despite the irony. She turned to face him fully. Without a place to put his hands, he permitted them to rest on his legs. Without the same hesitation he exhibited, her hand settled on his upper arm. With slow, intense gravity to her words, she said, "Mordin, I'm glad you're okay."

He blinked, uncertain of how to respond to a seemingly casual statement with such a complex tone.

"You had me worried," she added with that same slow smile. He was not sure why, but she leaned forward and pressed her lips against the side of his face, just above an old scar. When she pulled away, her thumb rubbed against his upper arm, gradually, gently, and she took a breath before releasing him.

"I haven't felt this good in a while," Shepard announced as she pulled away and lazily pushed herself to her feet. Her stance was much improved.

"Prior to the mission, I suspect?" Mordin supplied evenly and she shook her head.

"Something like that," Shepard informed him. "Something like that, Mordin."


End file.
